“I’m sure Phil agrees with you,” D.D. assured him now, glancing down the street, where Phil stood working his own phone. “But the fact remains that we need to know everything there is to know about Roxanna Baez and we need that information yesterday. Frankly, Flora already has an in with the girl, and we could use the help.”
Total silence from Neil.
“I’m sorry.” She couldn’t quite help the sarcasm leaking into her voice now. “Have you magically found Roxy and just forgot to tell me? Neighborhood patrols turned her up? You’re staring at her as we speak?”
“No,” Neil admitted grudgingly.
“Have you heard about Hector’s shooting? Did you know Flora helped identify Roxy’s hideaway across the street? Or that Roxy is carrying a light blue backpack, which we can now add to our search description?”
“So Roxy shot Hector?” Neil asked, no longer so hostile, more like resigned to his fate.
D.D. sighed heavily, her own temper fading. “I want to say yes, but honestly, I’m not sure. Roxy was tucked away in an empty office across from the scene. Someone matching her description fled the area. We have uniformed officers scouring the area, as well as pulling security tapes that might show us if it definitely was Roxy and her backpack people saw running away. My problem is, why would Roxy shoot Hector?”
“Let alone her entire family,” Neil finished for her. “At least on this end, Carol and I haven’t uncovered anything to suggest Roxy was feuding with her mom or involved in anything illegal. Not even any evidence of an evil boyfriend.”
“All reports are that she loved her siblings,” D.D. agreed, “and went out of her way to protect them.”
“So if Roxy’s innocent, why hasn’t she turned herself in?” Neil asked. “What’s she hiding for?”
“If I had to guess—I think she’s afraid.”
“Of what?”
“Honestly, Neil, that’s what we’d better figure out.”
D.D. ended the call. Phil had put away his own phone and was now waiting for her.
“I have two sets of contact info,” he announced. “One for the girls’ foster placement, the other for Juanita’s lawyer.”
D.D. considered the matter. “Any allegations of abuse the foster parent is going to deny, deny, deny.”
“On the other hand, the lawyer might have already dug up some evidence of the truth,” Phil provided.
“Lawyer it is.”
D.D. glanced at her phone. The text from home she still hadn’t read. The photo she still hadn’t opened.
Family. So much in life came down to family.
She slid her phone into her pocket and followed Phil to his car.
Chapter 21
THE FIRST FEW TIMES I walked past the high school, I missed Sarah completely. I was looking for a thin female in neutral clothes tucked behind a tree or lurking around a bush. But directly across from the school was a sea of concrete. Deli, mini-mart, pawnshop, all with a shared parking lot. Not a tree or twig in sight for obscuring a wannabe spy. And inside the stores it would be too difficult to peer deep into the school grounds, keep tabs on Mike Davis.
I headed up the sidewalk in front of the school, then back down, keeping my head low. As Sarah had said, the school grounds was a busy place. Various kids running around in sports uniforms, others clumped together in tight groups. I spotted Mike in a shadow near the end of the school building. He was doing his rocking back and forth on his heels. Maybe he had earbuds in. Maybe he was just listening to the music in his mind.
Third pass, getting nervous now, I heard: “Psst.”
I turned toward the street and, sure enough, Sarah. Not skulking. Not pacing. But tucked down in the passenger’s seat of a parked car. She cracked the door open as I approached.
“I didn’t know you had a car.”
“I don’t. Found the door unlocked. Helped myself.”
I nodded in admiration. “Nice improvising.”
“As you can see, there’s no good place to stand around watching. And given that I’m too old to be a student and too young to be a mom, I wasn’t sure how long I could walk laps around the athletic fields without someone becoming suspicious.”
I squatted down next to the vehicle. Basic silver economy car. Student parking sticker on the windshield. Collection of hair scrunchies wrapped around the shifter.
I was more and more impressed. Sarah could be anyone’s older sister waiting for her sibling’s practice to get out. She had her phone out in her hand. Another nice touch. Bored and texting to pass the time. Most people walking by probably didn’t even see her. And those who happened to peer in, notice a lone female staring at her phone? Nothing interesting to see there.
“So, anything to report?” I asked.
“Regarding Mr. Bojangles?” Sarah was chewing gum, a concession to her nervousness over her first surveillance mission. Now she blew a bubble, let it pop. Method acting, I thought. “Nah, he’s just been bouncing around the same small area. Sometimes, I swear his lips are moving. Maybe talking to all the voices in his head.”
“Or he has Bluetooth and is talking to someone on his phone.”
Sarah blew another bubble, let it pop again. “No way I can get close enough to make that determination. I’m here to observe any meet-and-greets. So far, nada.”
I nodded, peered through the car windows to spy Mike doing exactly as Sarah had reported: bouncing on his toes, murmuring to empty air.
“So this is Roxanna’s BFF?” Sarah asked.
“Apparently.”
“She’s got a nurturing streak.”
This caught my attention. I studied Sarah so intently she flushed, smacked her gum. “I mean, think about it. A kid like that? In the world of high school bullying, he basically has a target painted on his back. Roxy might be a ‘serious student.’ But I’ve met her in person. She could do better.”
“I get the impression he helped her and Lola out in foster care. Maybe hanging with him now is her way of returning the favor.”
“Then loyal and nurturing,” Sarah said.
“You don’t think she harmed her family.”
“Girl I met was too strung out to be that cold-blooded. If I’d heard she’d shot someone in self-defense, sure. But eliminate her entire family? Then head out to walk the dogs? No way.”
“The police need to speak with her,” I said softly.
“I haven’t heard from her,” Sarah said flatly in response to my unasked question. “Which, in the beginning, made sense. She’d need to get out of Dodge before she’d feel safe enough to call. But now I’m getting nervous. I feel like if she did have the opportunity to reach out . . . Well, we’re the ones most likely to believe her story, right? If she can’t confide in us, then who?”
I nodded. I’d begun wondering the same thing myself. Especially given the time. Nearly five P.M., the working hours of the day done, and still no word from her.
Sarah held up her phone. “I’m not just goofing off,” she said.
I squinted my eyes, peered at the screen. “It’s a memorial,” I said, looking at the collage of photos.
“Yeah. I found a Facebook page for Roxanna’s mother. Had a lot of family photos. So I set up a website in memory of the Baez family. Posted the photos, little comments I found online. A virtual memorial.”
I waited. Sarah had come far in the past year. From a ragged survivor barricaded in her studio apartment to this.
“We can track IP addresses. See which ones visit the page again and again.”
“Lots of people revisit memorials.”
“Yeah, but Roxanna’s on the run, right? No computer or phone.”
“I’m not sure. But if she does have a phone, the police will find her the moment she fires it up.”
“Which everyone knows, right? So if she wants news—and the girl has gotta be desperate for news—she’ll need to access a public computer. You know, hit the library, a cyber café, something like that.”
I nodded, getting it. “So we can check for a repeating IP address from a public location. Look for her there.”
“If we want to get really fancy, we can even look for patterns. Does the IP address hit the memorial address every hour on the hour, that sort of thing. Which would tell us when to visit the public location.”
“Very clever.”
“I know.”